The Proud Family Creators Snuck A Joke Back Into Their Final Cut [Exclusive]
It's hard to overstate the importance of Bruce W. Smith's "The Proud Family." The Disney Channel animated series was one of the first animated shows with a Black creator and a majority Black cast, unafraid to explore subjects like race, class, and cultural differences in a way that young audiences could understand. The show originally ran from 2001-2005, with 52 episodes, and the film, "The Proud Family Movie," marked the end of the series. That is, until Disney+ came calling and rebooted the series for a new generation.
Now in its second season, "The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder" continues the saga of The Proud Family and their diverse community of friends, family, and colleagues. /Film's own Rafael Motamayor recently spoke with show creator Bruce W. Smith and longtime producer Ralph Farquhar about continuing the series and gave some exclusive insight into what it's like working for the House of Mouse. As we've already learned from folks like "Gravity Falls" creator Alex Hirsh, there are some strict parameters the creative team has to work within, but "The Proud Family" always finds ways to sneak jokes back into the final product that don't always look appropriate on paper.
"An odd thing happens in the process of animation. Some jokes, when you look at them on the page, may seem a bit more risqué — even though it's funny, it's walking a line," said Smith. "But all of a sudden, when it gets translated in animation, somehow there's a process where it becomes acceptable because there are jokes that we dropped early on because the executive brass was kind of nervous about certain lines or whatever, and then after the animation was done, we dropped the line back in."
'Just let it breathe'
Bruce W. Smith called the process of sneaking jokes back into the animation "show-making judo," and admits it's something he probably shouldn't be doing. But in his words, it's a way to "preserve a line" that the team knew would work, and was funny enough to save. "Just let it breathe, let it breathe, and let the process happen to you and I can show you how this is going to work," he said. Smith said that the magic of animation allows even the most "walking the line" material to be digestible for mass audiences, which included a memorable joke from the first run of "The Proud Family."
"There was one episode in the previous first version, which was — setting the tone in all this is key to me. The tone has to be right there in front of you so you actually can't get away with certain jokes. One joke, it was written in the script, but it was always tough for the execs to follow, and that was when Oscar [Proud] got the Black slapped off of him."
For the white folks at home, "getting the Black slapped off you" is a lot like the expression "slapping the taste out of your mouth," where the phrase is typically used to say, "I am beyond done with you," rather than a genuine threat of violence. "We found a way to do it in animation that's hysterical, but when you read it on the page, it's already like, 'We can't do this,' and when you see it, you're like, 'Oh, they did it,' That's how it works," said Smith.
Unexpectedly getting jokes through
Of course, Bruce W. Smith has also gotten jokes through that he was convinced would be cut by Disney's executives. Producer Ralph Farquhar remembered a line from the episode "Love Thy Neighbor," where it's revealed the Lacienega, like much of the Boulevardez family, has disproportionately large feet. Once everyone finds out the family secret, Suga Mama (because of course it's Suga Mama) asks her sweetie Papi Boulevardez if he's also got big feet. He whips them out to prove he's got some massive dogs hidden in his shoes and Suga Mama exclaims, "Woo, I'm in love." Farquhar joked, "That's what went through. Wow. We never thought that would go through." I don't want to spell it out for y'all at home, but I also don't want to assume that you're also a bunch of filthy-minded heathens like yours truly.
It's a big wiener joke. It's a play on the old expression, "You know what they say about big feet ..." Somehow, the creatives behind "The Proud Family" managed to sneak a dick joke past the Disney execs.
But that's not to say "The Proud Family" hasn't been censored after episodes hit the airwaves. The episode "Who You Calling a Sissy?" regarding Michael Collins' identity was pulled after its first airing in 2005, as was "Wedding Bell Blues" during reruns on the network because Oscar accuses Suga Mama's boyfriend of being a sex worker. Both episodes have since been reinstated on Disney+, and Michael's character has been canonically established as gender non-conforming and recast to be voiced by genderfluid actor EJ Johnson.